Sudhanshu Saria’s Ulajh revolves around a nepo baby keen on confronting barbs about her privilege. Although billed as bright, multi-lingual and geopolitically aware, Suhana initially does little to dispel doubts about the unfair advantages bestowed upon her by an accident of birth.
A third-generation civil servant, Suhana (Jahnvi Kapoor) is posted to the United Kingdom as deputy high commissioner at a ridiculously young age. Contempt towards Suhana on account of her family connections and gender is proven when she gets involved with the first available, unsuitable man.
If this was a psychological thriller, we might have understood why the perfectly turned out Suhana gets involved with the haggard-looking Nakul (Gulshan Devaiah). Although Nakul looks shady too, no alarm bells rings in Suhana’s corner, leading her into an ulajh, or an entanglement, of nation-threatening proportions.
The burden of legacy – Suhana’s father Dhanraj (Adil Hussain) is India’s permanent representative to the United Nations – forces the naive diplomat to improvise. Jacob (Meiyeng Chang) and Sebin (Roshan Mathew), a couple of Research & Analysis Wing agents, can only seethe as Suhana tackles the possibility that her actions will put a vital peace plan with Pakistan at risk.
Like Suhana herself, the film’s opening sections inspire little confidence. Ulajh has been written by Parveez Shaikh and Saria, who previously directed the movie Loev (2018) and episodes of the series Big Girls Don’t Cry (2024). Ulajh is for Jhanvi Kapoor what Meghna Gulzar’s Raazi (2018) was for Alia Bhatt – a spy thriller led by a doughty heroine who undergoes a trial by fire to prove her commitment to the Indian flag.
Unlike Raazi, Ulajh has a confused plot, a questionable lead character, and unengaging secondary characters. The cast includes Rajesh Tailang as Suhana’s overly solicitous driver, Rajendra Gupta as the Foreign Minister, Jaimini Pathak as the R&AW boss Sanjeev, and Jitendra Joshi as Sanjeev’s deputy.
Intelligence of the espionage kind is in short supply, as is the nerve-wracking tension that is supposed to build up along with Suhana’s flailing. The 134-minute movie piles on the incredulity in London before somewhat recovering once it moves back to India.
Computers containing top-secret information lie about, waiting to be accessed. Characters flit in and out of sensitive spots, with nobody to stop them until it’s almost too late. Events lead up to the F-word that has hypnotised Bollywood. A spy franchise, featuring Suhana in further adventures (more likely misadventures) appears to be in the making.
Jahnvi Kapoor works extra hard to make Suhana worthy of empathy despite questionable choices. Presented as overtly glam, with distracting eyelashes and eyebrow-raising gullibility, Kapoor’s Suhana makes up for the lack of an interesting inner life with sheer physical activity.
Kapoor comes into her own in the latter part of the movie. When the going gets tough, Suhana finally gets going – even if a bit late in the day.
Meiyang Chang leads the list of wasted actors. Roshan Mathew, alongside jabbering away in Malayalam, looks busy at all times.
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